Breakdown at county building (and this time it wasn't the budget)

When City Council members borrowed the County Commission's meeting room Thursday, aldermen were welcomed with several technical difficulties.

Posted: Friday, June 29, 2001

While City Hall's ancient elevator is being replaced, Savannah's mayor and aldermen started using the County Commission's meeting room in the Old Courthouse at Wright Square.

For their meeting Thursday, they got an elevator. What they didn't get was all-important air conditioning and lights.

Or flushing toilets.

The Green Room, where City Council had its pre-council meeting, was stifling as the mayor and alderman clarified agenda items. A little after 2 p.m., before they headed out to the commission's meeting room, Chatham County Building Maintenance Supervisor Fred Thompson poked his head in with the good news and the bad.

"Folks, we've had a major breakdown and we've had to shut down all the air-conditioning in this building," Thompson said. "The good news is, it's a lot cooler out there than it is in here."

The mayor and aldermen took the news well. They filed in and took their seats. They bowed their heads for the invocation and said the Pledge of Allegiance. They got down to business.

Then they lost the lights. The darkness didn't much help cool the room. Mayor Floyd Adams Jr. wiped his head with his handkerchief. Aldermen fanned themselves with their meeting agendas.

"I'd like to thank the county for all their wonderful services," Adams joked.

Luckily, the meeting was a short one, and council approved routine purchases, contracts and petitions. It granted final approval to rezoning properties in the Largo Drive/Coffee Bluff area to reduce density there.

Thompson eventually restored most of the lights, but a main switch was blown that will have to be replaced, he said.

Other courthouse damage will take longer to repair. The fan belt for the air-conditioning's cooling tower snapped, so the water got hot. When that happens, the whole system is supposed to automatically shut down and a red light should appear on every thermostat in the courthouse, Thompson said.

But the emergency shutdown never happened, so the hot water 110 degrees, Thompson estimated flowed freely through PVC pipes not designed to handle hot water. The pipes, essentially made of thick plastic, blew.

That led to massive flooding on the first floor of the courthouse, where Chatham Area Transit cashiers sit; and a ceiling collapsed on the fourth floor, where the Engineering Department is housed.

Engineering staff got to go home in the early afternoon. County Engineer Al Bungard wasn't taking it too hard.

"It's a little hot and wet up there," he said.

A lone secretary was left to answer the phones amid tarp-covered desks and debris.

"Unbelievable," Thompson said as he walked around, surveying the damage and trying to figure out why the lights blew on top of everything else. "Mother Nature, I guess -- or maybe because City Council had its first meeting here. We've never had anything like this happen."

The county renovated the courthouse in 1992, and the air-conditioning system has never had a failure since then, Thompson said.

"We'll be here all night long trying to get this fixed before County Commission meets (Friday)," Thompson said.

At the very least, toilets will be restored to flushing order, Central Services Director George Lynch said.

The air-conditioning will definitely be fixed by the time City Council meets there again in two weeks, Thompson said.

"Does the elevator work at least?" Adams asked as he left.

It did.

County government reporter Shannon Lynch can be reached at slynch@savannahnow.com or 652-0462.